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The Alberta referendum coming on October 19 has raised many concerns and questions for people in our province and indeed across the country. As a congregational leader, I have had to ask the question: “How does the Church faithfully respond to the coming referendum?”

I believe there is both a political and prophetic role to play in this important discussion. It centres around taking the Bible seriously and responding to its call to active engagement.

First, I believe congregations are natural places for conversation. Often, people from diverse perspectives and backgrounds gather in our churches, and it makes sense to provide opportunities for intentional conversation.

While some might say, “Politics has no place in the Church,” I believe they would be missing a significant aspect of Jesus’ purpose and message. Jesus’ “earth-centred,” “here-focused” ministry calls us to consider how all of us can live a meaningful life here and now.

I am concerned about Christian worship that is otherworldly and heaven-focused, missing the explicit call to attend to this life that Jesus modelled. Our job and our prayer, in the Lord’s Prayer, is to bring “heaven here on earth,” not the other way around. We are meant to transform the world with what we pray, sing, and say in the sanctuary. If it stays there, we are only doing half the job.

For Christians, Jesus was a person engaged in conversations, debates and discussions, teaching people about who we serve, who is included, who is worthy, and how people care for one another in community. That is what politics is about. The word politics comes from the Greek word politika, meaning the “affairs of the city or community.”

Being concerned about the vulnerable, the excluded and the stranger is central to Jesus’ ministry. He was concerned that people are fed, clothed and welcomed – in particular, the stranger or newcomer. Jesus was always inviting a wider perspective. This was central to his numerous parables about the kingdom of God. As a refugee himself, Jesus was concerned about welcoming the stranger.

In the referendum, six of the nine questions are about immigration, and in times of stress, immigrants are often scapegoated. Just a year ago, our province campaigned, at great expense, to welcome immigrants, and now it seeks to punish them on arrival and make them unequal in their status among us.

Almost any hospital, airport, seniors’ home, taxi, Uber or coffee shop would struggle without the employment of immigrants. Doing our best to welcome and support new Canadians is our calling as people of faith – and indeed, the calling of all of us. We are all immigrants, except our Indigenous folk who have stewarded this land for generations before us.

Our Hillhurst Church has been intentional about the referendum. We are providing space for conversation in worship through what we call “Referendum Reflection.” This is creating a pastoral space to care for each other.

Each week, we post one of the nine questions being asked of us. It is important that people see what is being asked. Sadly, the questions are geared toward university-educated people and are long and convoluted. If the pre-reading isn’t done, the voting-day rush could be a disaster, ending in frustration.

During this segment of worship, we also invite congregants to talk about their own story related to the question. The conversations are enlivening. It has been a rich time to learn together. Midweek, we have space for coffee and conversation to further small-group engagement. Helping people not feel alone is important at this time.

Lastly, we have set October as a deep dive into the greatest commandment of Jesus: “To love God, with all our heart, soul and mind, and our neighbour as ourselves.”

What does it mean to be a good neighbour?

We have invited a speaker from Minneapolis to join us on referendum weekend to share how his church began to flourish when they took this commandment seriously and meaningfully. His church is in the neighbourhood of George Floyd’s death and the January ICE agent crisis last winter. His story is a story of hope amidst chaos and fear.

We are not alone in this education process. We point our congregants toward other great organizations in the city committed to education and conversation on this topic. Good citizen engagement is key to a vibrant society.

Of course, the question of separation is on everyone’s mind. How we engage with those who hold a different perspective is important. My main goal is to have people understand each other’s perspectives. It is through conversation that we go deeper, beyond “othering,” and diminish the alienation between us.

I encourage people to use this phrase: “Help me understand your view more deeply.”

While it can be difficult, we are called to hear each other.

While we are meant to be non-partisan in all of this, I have a hard time keeping my elbows down and my Canadian flag hidden. I confess my fear of Christian nationalism and the role some right-wing churches are playing by infiltrating and seeding fear and hate. I am concerned that the Jesus preached there doesn’t reflect the Jesus of the Bible.

I also have concern about our neighbour to the south, who shows no regard for Canada as a nation and its independence.

I have never thought sermons and community mattered more.

I believe the churches, synagogues, mosques, temples and community places need to be upfront and open to conversation. Our shared prophetic work is to raise questions, to call out injustice, and to take time to create spaces of communal concern.

We need to drop our phones, get out of our echo chambers, and lift our heads into live conversation about who we are and how we live together.

These encounters create what I call “horizontal transcendence” – a space where we touch what we share in common and hear what each other dreams for our society. In this space we encounter the Divine.

I believe it is here that we sense the divine call for unity in our diversity.

Marking an X on a ballot can be one of the most spiritual actions we can take.

The call is simple: Get out and vote!

Yes, it is political. And yes, it is faithful to have common care and concern for people and the planet.

It is a privilege we must embrace fully – all of us.

John Pentland is the lead minister at Hillhurst United Church.